World News - FBI plans new Net-tapping push. Our Public Serpents have a big appetite for all the info about you. Don’t that give you get a warm and fuzzy feeling

The FBI has drafted sweeping legislation that would require Internet service providers to create wiretapping hubs for police surveillance and force makers of networking gear to build in backdoors for eavesdropping, CNET News.com has learned. FBI Agent Barry Smith distributed the proposal at a private meeting last Friday with industry representatives and indicated it would be introduced by Sen. Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican, according to two sources familiar with the meeting. The draft bill would place the FBI's Net-surveillance push on solid legal footing. At the moment, it's ensnared in a legal challenge from universities and some technology companies that claim the Federal Communications Commission's broadband surveillance directives exceed what Congress has authorized. The FBI claims that expanding the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act is necessary to thwart criminals and terrorists who have turned to technologies like voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP. ... http://news.com.com

Fire ripped through a paint factory in the Kenyan capital on Saturday, killing four people and leaving another seven missing feared dead, police said.After a machine apparently exploded, a huge fire sent smoke billowing into the sky over the factory next to a busy highway in north Nairobi, witnesses said.Workers said some victims were unable to escape because managers had locked the company's heavy metal doors -- but police disputed that."We have retrieved four bodies. We are trying our best to search for the seven other bodies we believe are inside," area police boss Julius Muthuri told Reuters.Distraught relatives and friends crowded round the factory -- which makes paint, adhesives and other chemicals -- some even trying to get in before the blaze was over....http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/07/08/kenya.fire.reut/index.html?section=cnn_world

Astronauts Piers Sellers and Mike Fossum climbed out of an airlock on the international space station Saturday, starting a spacewalk to fix the complex's rail transporter and test whether a boom can be used to make repairs to the space shuttle. The planned 6 1/2-hour jaunt, which began as the space station passed over Asia 220 miles below, was the first spacewalk for Fossum and the fourth for Sellers. "Enjoy the view, gentlemen!" NASA communicator Megan McArthur said from Houston. Both astronauts did. When Mission Control pointed out to Sellers that he could view Britain over his left shoulder, the British-born spacewalker said, "Wow! Oh, my goodness. It's a beautiful day in Ireland." As he looked down at the Caspian Sea several minutes later, Fossum said, "Ha, ha, ha. This is a good view. I'm in a dream; nobody wake me up." ...http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=2167986

A 4-year-old boy survived a fall from an 11-story apartment window, bouncing off a metal awning into a concrete courtyard and then trying to stand up. He was able to chat with doctors, leaving police and medical workers shocked, according to a media report. "I'm amazed the kid's alive," Police Chief James Tuffey told the Times Union newspaper.Hasim Townsend remained in serious condition Saturday with a broken skull, a broken leg and other injuries."It's an incredibly good sign that he was talking and I can't attribute it to anything other than good luck," Dr. Michael Dailey, an attending physician in the emergency department, told the newspaper.Townsend ended up in the same pediatric intensive care unit at Albany Medical Center where his mother works as a receptionist, police reports said....http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,202654,00.html

One former intelligence field officer says, and two other CIA officials confirm, that the alleged plot by Muslim extremists to bomb the Holland Tunnel in New York City was nothing more than chatter by unaffiliated individuals with no financing or training in an open forum already monitored extensively by the United States Government, RAW STORY has learned. “The so-called New York tunnel plot was a result of discussions held on an open Jihadi web site,” said Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer and contributor to American Conservative magazine, in a late Friday afternoon conversation. Although Giraldi acknowledges that the persons involved – “three of whom have already been arrested in Lebanon and elsewhere - are indeed extremists," their online chatter is considerably overblown by allegations of an actual plot....http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/No_Plot_for_NYC_Just_Hate_0707.html

Seven terror suspects have escaped from prison in Saudi Arabia, according to the country's Interior Ministry. Saudi-owned television Al Arabiya said the fugitives - six Saudis and one Yemeni - were linked to al-Qaeda. Saudi Arabia has been battling a campaign of violence by al-Qaeda aimed at toppling the pro-US monarchy. The suspects fled Malaz prison in the capital Riyadh, where they had been held over "security related issues," an Interior Ministry statement said. The term is used by Saudi authorities to describe terrorism charges. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5160410.stm